so i was flipping through my writing notebook and found old writing prompts morghan had given me, only a couple of which i had completed, and two of which i had not. one of these uncompleted prompts included "blue, naked, and coddle" -- or "cuddle," i couldn't tell which i'd written. so from that prompt came this, where i tried to tread between "cuddle" and "coddle," just in case.

A thump startled her awake. Awareness was slower in coming, and Aspasia lifted her head gingerly. A soft groan escaped her as she realized her head was somehow spinning, swimming, and pounding all at the same time. Memory of her sinus infection, recently diagnosed along with severe bronchitis, penetrated as she suppressed a cough and slumped bonelessly back on her pillows. The warm weight pressed snugly to her back shifted, and Sin snuffled against her neck.

“You all right, love?” he murmured.

“Nngh,” she replied.

A comforting hand ghosted over her hip, leaving warmth in its wake as he kissed the nape of her neck. “Can I get you anything?”

Her response was cut off by another thump. This one was followed shortly by a distant giggle, a portent of doom. She winced.

“What are your children doing, Sin?”

“My children?” he grumbled good-naturedly, beginning to sit up. “Why is it they’re never our children when they’re—oh, sweet Mary, mother of God.” Sin’s abrupt silence indicated many things—shock, awe, disbelief—none of them good. With great effort, Pacie heaved herself upright and waited for her head to cease its swimming. And blinked, then blinked again.

There, in the doorway of the bedroom, stood their young children, the pair of them, stark naked and dripping with blue paint. She sighed and, patting Sin’s shoulder, slumped back against the pillows. “Your children.”

to the end of goal number three (decide what you want for yourself), i've been musing (okay, mulling) for a while. at first, i made a knee-jerk jump at social work. after all, aislinn is in social work, and aislinn has the most brilliant internship ever right now (working with at-risk-for-human-trafficking-youth in jamaica, teaching useful, employable skills, at a school that provides lodging and helps find employment upon completion of the program), and social work certainly seems to have the more community-leaning focus that i'm missing in my counseling realm. i made a hurried inquiry into UK's social work program and realized i was only one week from the application deadline and decided, sensibly, that that was too short a time to wrangle recommendation letters, and etc., and went ahead with the plan to go on into the EdS in my current plan -- at least that way, i'll have to ability to become licensed as a counselor, rather than having a useless (but awfully pretty) MS after my name.

with that decision made, i've set back a little bit and thought a little more about what i actually want. but it's hard -- there are so many things that i've done that i've truly loved with all my heart that i have trouble pinning down where i ought to be.

i honestly loved every second of doing theatre, even the mornings when it was 4:00 AM and i was still on the catwalk, kept conscious only by coffee, mountain dew, and sheer determination, even when i was gritting my teeth to keep from saying rude words to the director, even when it was far too close to opening night and there was way too much yet to be finished.

i honestly loved working at camp. living and breathing for the campers, even when it was a thousand degrees outside and i got to choose between showering and sleeping, even when i was doing stacks on stacks of dishes for rude fifth graders who splattered ketchup on me, even when my blisters had blisters and my sunburn had sunburn -- i felt like i was making a difference, i was where God wanted me, and i was happy.

i honestly loved Ulster. Ulster was beautiful. even when i hadn't slept since june, the kids were picking at each other, there were so many kinks to work out, we were all learning on the fly -- it's such a beautiful mission, and i definitely still want my research to revolve there. i learned, and i guided, and i grew.

i can even honestly say, now, that i love my practicum site. i'm providing free counseling services to adults seeking their GEDs, most of whom are low SES and disadvantaged in a number of other ways. the vast majority would never have access to the services i'm providing. even the fact that i smile and greet these students by name has an impact. validating and encouraging and telling them how proud i am of them makes a difference for these students, because for a lot of them, they haven't heard that in a long time, and maybe not ever. i've learned so much from them, about myself and about my counseling orientation and about what it means to be human in relation to another human. and i've loved it, even when i've hated it and it's made me cry and i've yelled at my supervisor and i've had to call and make reports about terrible things and i've gone home with migraines.

and so, i've had varied experiences and varied interests and i've loved every single one of them. how can i ever narrow down and decide what i want to pursue? i still haven't decided. i know some further soul-searching is in order. i have a couple of people whose opinions i value, who i look up to and admire, that i want to get in contact with and mull together. i even think a good long exhausting hike at loucon might be in order. but i found a starting point.

a dear friend, one of these aforementioned people i admire and look up to, julie, finished a draft of her novel several months ago. when she did, she posted on her blog (found here! she's amazing -- http://rosewoodpencilbox.blogspot.com/2011/05/hm-that-was-quick.html) about something called love lists (originally found here, because i'm too lazy to link properly -- http://betweenfactandfiction.blogspot.com/2011/01/happy-writers-society-love-lists-by.html). this has been useful to me in sorting out my writing, so i figured it would also be useful in sorting out my life.

and so, behold. my love list, about life, and i guess more roundabout-ly, about my career interests:
( things i love )

i don't know what to make of it, as it is. but it's a start. and i think it gets at the core of who i am and what i value.

my grad school friends-and-acquaintances are slowly coming to know me as a writer. it is strange, to call myself that, still, when it doesn't mean the same thing to me as it used to.

in high school, i could honestly say i write novels. i wrote stories over a hundred pages, several of them, when i should have been paying attention in english or physics or pre cal. allison and i compared notes and traded critiques every day, junior and most of senior year. sure, those stories make me cringe now, and i would never let someone read them, not if they paid me, but they were so important to me then, and they were so important to building those friendships with allison and kari.

in college, i wrote characters, and little snippets, and still tried to flesh out longer stories. (i have at least four, that i started in undergrad, with outlines and structure and the potential to actually be something, that never got further than thirty pages; some never made it past the outline and a page or two.)

the first year of grad school, i don't think i wrote anything that wasn't a paper. i fell into my cloud of whatever the fuck that was, and didn't care about anything, didn't bother with anything, and shut down vital pieces of me. it is only within the last several months that i've felt myself awakening again, like a little flower opening slowly in spring time. i have a story that has stolen my soul, that i've researched the ever loving hell out of, that i sort of maybe know what i'm doing with, that i want to see come to fruition. i love the characters, i love the background, i love so much about it, and yet it scares the shit out of me, because i love it so much and that means that there is massive room for failure. in bits and bats, it's coming out of me, and it's spilling out in ways that other people are noticing: oh, what are you working on? what's that green notebook you carry everywhere? who's Oisín? why the hell did you request so fucking many irish fairy tale books through ILL? i even shared, bashfully, tentatively, with my adviser (the asker of the last question, baffled by the stack of incongruous books present during our last meeting), that i was maybe, sort of, working on a novelishlengthmoderndayreinterpretationofirishmyths. for adults. i am the librarian's new darling, and i am thoroughly unprepared to deal with her questions. doesn't she realize how new and terrifyingly fragile this is?

we all know i am awful at keeping up with a journal. this isn't high school anymore, after all. (thank god.)

i am back at UK, back in lexington. school is starting, i am as apathetic as usual, already behind on my readings and ahead in my planning. i'm taking a group counseling class, personality assessment, and practicum. my practicum site is the adult education center in downtown louisville, which means lots of driving back and forth that i am already sick of. i'm theoretically volunteering with the bluegrass rape crisis center and getting three hours of independent study credit for that, but i need to have an interview with them and then undergo forty hours of training first. it will be good experience, i think, if i can keep it from being trigger-y.

i finally processed a little about aastik's passing (his death, i still can't quite bring myself to say; when i talk about him at all, i usually just say i finally managed to process a little about aastik, and it is so awful to reduce everything about him down to that), and i think i'll post about it at some stage, just to articulate what i'm thinking. to further encourage the process and all that.

i really need to get my shit together, but i need to go to the library and of course since today's a HOLIDAY, the library is closed, and all the books i need to read are on reserve there. not sure if the coffee shop is closed or not. -- jk, they are. bugger.

i've been terribly out of touch with everyone. sorry :( i'm an awful friend.

i am planning a halloween party, where i will hopefully see everyone and make it up to you all. more information on that to come.

to do tomorrow

-fold my laundry
-clean brad and katie's kitchen
-straighten the living room
-get my things out of the dining room
-wash dishes
-shower
-prep for the board meeting
-shaving cream party
-shooters for dinner :)

so i am clearly not cut out to be a fish-mommy. at least mercury made it over a year. nearly a year and a half.

all drains lead to the ocean, right?

In honor of finishing my ethics final, here is Sin/Pacie fluff, as promised.


Short, and so sweet it'll give you cavities.

( rainy days )

one of these nights, i will sleep longer than half an hour at a time.

there will be naps today.

for now, class soon.

six years, since i really hung out with him. at least five since i've seen him. one of my best friends in high school, i was hopelessly in love with him, and, given half a chance and the right circumstances, i probably still would be.

last i heard, he was married, in the air force, and had a kid on the way.

doesn't change the fact that every single time i hear this song, i'm in high school, in the front seat of his car, my feet on his dashboard, the windows down, this song blaring and singing along.

he's just that kind of boy: the one you'll think about when you're fifty years old and wonder what if. the one you think you see when you're out somewhere, and you know it's not him but your heart jumps a little anyway. the one that got away, if that weren't so fucking cliche.

my mom will never understand why i prefer this version of this song to the don henley original. it's all emotional significance, all memories, all high school nights and almosts and kissing in my driveway and him driving way too fast and my absolute trust that i could never, ever get hurt with him.

i wish the world could just calm the fuck down and let me have a few days to breathe.

i need more days like today.